The main thing that bugs me about episodic games is that they aren't a "complete" game. Being able to play through a game the first time all the way through would be a rather different experience than playing through one part, another part later, another part later, another later, then finally getting a conclusion. "The whole is more than the sum of its parts," as it were. Would also compound the problem of not ending a series when it should be ended, instead keeping it going to milk more and more money from people.

Of course you could just wait until enough of the episodes are released then get it all at once, but that just adds more time to the already-elongated development time of games these days, and runs greater risks of running across spoilers and other information you don't want to know until you see it yourself.

Considering the number of choices he has of companies that don't do it (very few), then are we supposed to just let PC gaming die because no one's buying and everyone just screams "zOMGPIRaCY!!!1!1"?

Also consider the following.. Oblivion came with nearly no copy protection. People bought it (including myself, and some, like myself, because it had no copy protection) and it became a top-selling PC game. Despite that, it's expansion, Shivering Isle, came with SecuROM. Fallout 3 also comes with SecuROM. I have not and will not buy either of those as long as that's part of the deal. Bethesda lately has been complaining about piracy. See the problem here?

EDIT:
Also pertinent to note that there's been some speculation that Sony (creators of SecuROM) required Bethesda to use it for their PC games to be able to put them on the PS3 (as Oblivion getting the PS3 port is around the time Bethesda started using SecuROM). And given how easilly the SecuROM is gotten around in Fallout 3, it doesn't seem as though they really cared about using it.

Read the article. They discuss exactly how the PC market has been changing (in many of the ways you guys are complaining about) to adjust and how they're likely to change in the future. Essentially developing PC games that require Internet access to unlock and/or have online gameplay that would reduce the effectiveness of piracy (the reasoning being that piracy is so bad that the consumers without an Internet connection are fewer than the ones pirating who would otherwise pay -- so STFU about your lost business). One of the side effects of this is that entire PC genres have been disappearing because they don't fit the online model. They are no longer profitable on the PC platform (adventure gaming was an example given by the OP's article). DRM is of course another way in which the PC market has been changing. As the author of the article said, whenever the pirates bitch about forcing the entertainment industry to adjust, they should be careful what they wish for. As mentioned, the industry is adjusting and has been and you haven't liked any of their adjustments. As I said, poisoning your own well.

I appear to have gotten a pirated copy of the Friends series on DVD for Christmas. The gift giver had no way of knowing as they aren't very technically minded and don't know much of anything about copyright infringement. They only saw that they could get the DVD set for less than half price if they ordered from China. The package contains numerous spelling/grammar mistakes, the center ring on the DVDs has some kind of weird wax on it that doesn't look like it would be good for a DVD player, and about 6 or 7 of the DVDs are repeats (meaning 6 or 7 are also missing). And when the gift giver, who thought they were doing something really nice for me, finds out they're going to feel really bad. So now I feel like a jerk for not being satisfied with the gift... Which would cost a fortune to return to China....... It's probably legal under Chinese law for the distributor to reproduce this, and even if it is a "legitimate" operation in line with Warner Bros., the product coming out is still of terrible quality.

Because throwing the baby out with the bath water works just so darn well.

I've made my point.. this isn't about "right or wrong", it's about the core issues surround the problems of declining PC game quality and support. You cannot properly fix the problem if you don't even know what the problem that you need to fix is.

Piracy is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.. which, IMO, are people not buying crappy hyped up games as much as they used to, bloating development costs with the expectation to magically make it all back with a good game, and that some games just don't sell for no discernable reason (but who knows what the problem really is; it's not like they're trying to find out).

Of course, having large conglomerates willing and able to buy out anything and anyone showing genuine talent in making PC games, just to force their will upon them and turn them into money vaccuums doesn't help. And really, would the likes of Sony and Microsoft really care if the PC gaming division is bringing in crappy returns? With everything else they're involved in and the money they get from it, keeping PC gaming lucrative probably isn't their highest priority. THey have music, consoles, and OSs to worry about.

So, I'm honestly curious.. how would you fix the problem here?

Given all the problems involved, to claim that piracy is the only problem and the root of all the others is simplistic and stupid.

On the topic of the DRM mentioned in the article: The letter that he shows a photograph of seems to imply that the DRM that came with the Elder Scrolls game checks if you are running processes that could be used to bypass the DRM, and refuses to run the game otherwise. I don't have any experience with PC game DRM, but if that is the case, then I can see the controversy. It's none of the game seller's business what programs you run while you run their game. If that is not the case, then how does it work, and why would the programs mentioned in the letter cause DRM problems?

The article is in no way unbiased. Because the article is rather long and many of its contentions are very much in dispute, it is unhelpful to simply say 'your points are refuted in the article'. Please at least characterize the argument that you want to advance.

From what I've read on Wikipedia and its website, what Securom does is it encrypts the application on your HD and checks the key on the CD to decrypt it. How does it work other than that; if that's all it does then why is it controversial; and, since I assume that's not all it does, what else does it do?

If your game idea requires episodes to remain relevant, your game idea sucks. Quake I/II/III are still played and will continue to be played for years on. Baldur's Gate will also endure. This "we all know" business is an excuse not to think, or actually make a good game.

As for the article, yes it is very flawed. It makes a lot of unfounded assumptions, invalidation of any one of which would collapse the house of cards taht the writer built on top of them. Frankly, I can't be responsible for the idiocy of my fellow humans, so it's not my darned fault if their piracy ruins the PC gaming market. I pirate as means of a fair demo, and then I buy the real version if I like it. Otherwise, the piece of excrement gets off my HDD for good. If it has DRM, I either don't buy it, or pirate it with something to remove the DRM. My Vista install is on 40GB, and I need to reinstall any game I want to play. I am not changing my habits due to the whims of the game publishes/developers.

I see how the whole thing is illegal, but as the article writer said, laws are not always just. In this particular case, I think piracy is moral, but illegal... But since morality is oh so relative, that's an irrelevant statement.

Otherwise, I agree with Kitty Cat's points.

Took me 6 hours or so, but finished reading it. Commenting about the article:

So true. That is why I buy original games, because if I like a game a lot, I would not be able to wait until I get it (often a month or two to ship it here), and would hate to replay the game losing any saved data. In case of Nintendo DS or Wii games, it would mean a completely new friend code, which makes you lose your list of friends, online records, etc.

Music is different: I sometimes download MP3 songs, and if I like them, I buy the album. In fact, I have several albums here (Avantasia's The Metal Opera I and II, some from Epica, etc) that I never opened after buying because the MP3s are fine enough and don't need to rip the CDs. In this case, I equal downloading and playing a MP3 to listening it in the radio. It is similar to watching a video in YouTube, it is illegal, but allows me to try the music out before buying.

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Woo-hoo! Latin America is up there! Argentina is 37th in the full ranking by country.

Just like the article stated, prices are too high. The average income here is around USD 400, while a original PlayStation 3 is sold between USD 400 (through auction sites) and USD 1000 (though big market chains). This is the main excuse given down here when you discuss about piracy.

Dollar loss is not the term to be used, negative revenue could be better. It is the amount of money the pirated copies could have generated.

If only for this, the used market also damages the industry. For example, Frontier sold 100 copies only in Italy, but the tech support of Frontier Developments were receiving tens of thousands of calls. No way to know if they were all due piracy or second hand market, but this is an extra cost for the developer.

I would suggest reading Casual Games and Piracy: The Truth, where Russell Carroll, director of marketing at Reflexive, explained how many sales they were able to rescue when working around the different piracy attacks (breaking DRM, cracks, keygens and exploits), and was the piece that enforced 2D Boy (World of Goo creators) to write their blog and explanation about why they think their game had a 90% piracy rate.

Here the article has an error: it does not indicate digital distribution matches retail sales, but instead that they do more money out of digital distribution than retail sales. Which is only natural, since retailing needs printed manuals, boxes, media, physical distribution, etc. So, it could be that half the sales from digital distribution matches the money they do from retailers.

They don't mention how World of Warcraft canibalizes other MMORPGs. This is because it is extremely hard to build a business against a established franchise, just like it is very hard to build a business around operative systems with Microsoft Windows around, office packages with Microsoft Office, internet searching around Google, etc.

It is possible, sure, but it takes a lot of time. Google didn't become the most used search engine in a year.

The problem with this model is that much time passes between episodes. They compare it to TV episodes, but you usually wait for a week only, when episodic games could take two years or more (like Half-Life). Your game may be already obsolete by the new tech standards by the time you release a new episode. You force people to replay the original game (especially if it has a dark or complex story) just to keep up with the new episode. And you are competing against newer products. For example, GTA4 was released early this year, and the first episodic content will appear in March 2009. How can someone justify paying for a game that is already a year old when newer games have appeared?

As they point out, advertisement only helps the publisher by increasing their income. However, the final user is still paying the same amount of money as if the game had had no advertisement at all. If you don't translate the benefit to the end user, piracy will continue. This is where extra incentives for original games are needed: for example, getting a code to download extra armours or weapons for a FPS, new maps for multiplaying, even strategy guides for boxed articles, etc. This may not only prevent piracy but also second hand offerings.

Uh?

Not really, those 2 million copies include console and handheld versions.

Somehow, I noticed the author became excited when talking about DRM, putting more emphasis in defending it than examining other piracy methods like cracking and key generating. He seems pretty sad that StarForce was dropped by Ubisoft, and then uses the EULA ("the user is only licensed to use a copy of the game under certain terms and conditions, and does not ever own that game") to say the different measures by DRM are fine. Uh... that should have been at the very first page of the article if he had wanted to take that path... it is like a lawyer presenting a case for 6 hours about how the accused is guilty to end with "according to the law, stealing is a crime".

He keeps mentioning that other application installs at Ring 0 like DRM (using as example SpeedFan). So, he is comparing a freeware that needs to have that low access to get the information it needs to applications that sure cost hudnreds of thousands of dollars?

Then he contradicts himself by assuming good faith in the SecureROM developer but not in the users that complain about it:

This paragraph is questionable:

Uh? So we went from analyzing piracy to "The user got malware? His fault for pirating." That should have been stated at the first page too: cracked version of games may have been modified by the crackers to contain determined functionality not found in the original version (contrary to their mention of developers purposedly removing features or adding game-breaking bugs in early discs to discourage piracy).

Well, it is similar to the unique ID per country citizen. No campaign will request it, but people will surely go against it if implemented, because it turns the table: "you are a potential criminal, and therefore we setup this DRM system in your PC." There are those who say "If you didn't do anything wrong, what do you fear?". But that excuse is basically against common sense in law: you are innocent until proven guilty.

Then they compare Valve to DRM systems, saying that "At the very least it certainly demonstrates that DRM can become accepted, even loved, if presented in the right way." While Valve is a DRM system, the DRM systems are not content delivery systems. That many people got to love Valve does not indicate people will like DRM, ever. Valve is convenient: you get to play games the day they are released without having to leave your home. That is something DRM systems cannot do.

Talking about Valve, they explain why I don't like it:

Aha, here is the deal: what is crappy for you can be priceless for someone else. GameSpot vs. Eidos deal and IGN claim that GTA4 story was Oscar-worthy reduces the credibility of reviewers.

The article was fine until the DRM pages, where the author defended it as the least possible evil. His conclusion was that PC sales are suffering because piracy based on the comparison between sales in consoles and in PC. However, console sales have always been much higher than PC ones. In 1995, when the NES was discontinued, Super Mario Bros 3 had surely sold well over 10 million copies (eventually reaching 18 million). Very few PC games have sold more than 10 million games, before or after SMB3. Maybe not 5:1, but I assume those who know about hardware not only have a powerful PC, but also an Xbox 360 or a PS3 game console, and since players usually buy just one version of the game, PC sales end getting hurt.

Anyways, good article, although tedious. Would not read again.

A little more specific?

Aren't you one of the proponents for gameplay > graphics? So how can you argue that buying a game made with an "outdated" engine is unreasonable? Personally, I still find Half-Life 2 episodes to be enjoyable (though I haven't really been able to play Episode 2 yet). The games are typically long enough to be considered full games. And anyway, the episodes do get a technological overhaul because I can't even play HL2:EP2 on my existing hardware, but HL2 and HL2:EP1 run fine. I'm not sure Half-Life 2 really fits the "episode" model presented here because developing the whole story in one shot would have taken a long time and the end result would have been a very long game (first-person shooters generally don't last 50+ hours like RPGs can).

There are a lot of "old" games that I love to play again and would be thrilled to get extended gameplay for.

Well as mentioned in the article, there is a lot of risk involved in game development. Would you risk the profits of a project on an experimental advertising strategy or use the money made to keep other projects alive. I'm sure if game companies could they would drop the price of their products. I think it's a little narrow minded to say that the advertising should have immediately meant lower prices for consumers.

In other words, a bad (read: curse) word.

The thought is still there. I appreciate what they did. I'm not going to pretend that it worked out though. The truth is they were cheap and it seems were stung for it (the Chinese copy was half the cost of a domestic purchase, at least before shipping). You get what you pay for. I absolutely appreciate their effort nonetheless, but I didn't even ask for this because I knew it was more expensive than they would go and planned to buy it myself at a later date.

Besides, it's good for them to realize that things can go badly when you blindly make purchases over the Internet (tonight I learned that the distributor charged the gift giver twice and didn't return any correspondence despite many tries to contact them to check on the order status, which apparently took a very long time... The package finally arrived Christmas Eve). Rather than let them buy falsified products again and again, I think it's better to let them know about it.

Personally, if I buy something for somebody I want to know how they really feel about it. If you don't like it then you don't like it. That's not a problem. Dishonesty isn't good for anybody involved. The gift giver is robbed of truly pleasing you (even if they don't know it) and you just end up scrapping their efforts, making the whole thing a worthless and wasteful exchange.

I told the gift givers tonight. Unfortunately, I think they feel bad for it, but they'll get over it I'm sure. It's probably more embarrassment and violation that they're feeling. And hopefully they will be more careful in the future. I still don't know what I'm going to do about it though.

[citation needed]

Everybody that I know that pirate media (90% of the people I know) don't buy it anymore: movies, music, games, etc. If they can pirate it they do and if they can't they usually go without. As a matter of fact, none of them consider it wrong (much like most of you). They don't think they're doing any harm, so why would they buy? And I'm Canadian.

Ummm, they're only using 2 months worth of data collected by what sounds like a contracted company....... >_< And it was the Canadian government! Call it biased, but I don't trust that "study"...